Re: [tied] Re: Sarasvati River

From: Alexander Stolbov
Message: 7454
Date: 2001-06-01

I'm afraid Danish archaic toponyms can not be connected with early Iranian
(or Indo-Iranian) terms in any way. Proto-Aryans were formed on the eastern
edge of the IE areal (if not mention the Afanasyevo culture, which split off
very early and by that time already occupied the Minusinsk hollow) and
spread mainly eastward.
Common IE source? Then we would find this term everywhere and it were well
studied.

I'd try to connect Scandinavian toponyms which have no IE etymology with the
population preceding Germanic tribes - people of the Megalithic culture or
the Funnelware culture. I wouldn't be surprised if the name of the Ran(d)
river appeared to be connected with Rhone and Rhine on the territory of the
Megalithic culture (although later names could be the heritage of Beakers
who did not reach Denmark).

Alexander



----- Original Message -----
From: <tgpedersen@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, June 01, 2001 11:50 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: Sarasvati River


--- In cybalist@..., "Alexander Stolbov" <astolbov@...> wrote:
> Thank you.
> Do you mean that first a linguistic scenario for "Harahvaiti >
Ranha" is needed and only then every step of it can be considered as
possible or impossible, probable or incredible?
> BTW, can not Mordovian names for Volga - Rav, Ravo, Rava help
here? - If we accept in this case a borrowing from Iranian after
*Sarasvaiti (common Aryan) > Harahvaiti (early Iranian) but before
Harahvaiti (early Iranian) > Ranha (later Iranian).


For what it's worth (please note that I am not advocating an all-
encompassing linguistic theory, I'm just asking a question about some
data which puzzle me), some names of Danish towns at the mouth of
an 'aa' (brook, river, cognate of Gothic ahwa, ON รก)

Aarhus : (older Aros, i.e. Ar-os, mouth of the 'aa')

Randers: Randr-os has been suggested, i.e. mouth of the river with
the presumed name Ran(d), today Gudenaa.

Any relation to that Volga name? Pre-IE?

Torsten






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